Students plant 4,500 trees during annual tree plant day

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Story Published: Mar 31, 2009 at 4:54 PM PDT

By Kristina Nelson KCBY News

SCOTTSBURG, Ore. - For the past 64 years, students from Reedsport and Elkton have spent a day each spring planting trees as part of the Lower Umpqua Schools Tree Plant Day.

And on Tuesday, 120 fifth- and sixth-graders made the trek to an old logging site just outside of Scottsburg for this year's event.

"We're just planting a site that we had logged a couple of years ago. It's about 10 acres we're planting today. We're hoping to plant about 4,500 trees here," said event chairman Tim Truax.

The event, which is the longest running of its kind in the nation, was started in 1946 by John Skaaluren, who was the mayor of Reedsport at the time.

Ardella Bennet, Helen Bartow, and Mary Ann Jackson were seniors at Reedsport High School that year, and were part of the very first tree plant day. They said it was quite the event and even the governor showed up.

"I don't think I really learned what the event was about until much later in life," said Jackson.

"It was just a way to get out of school for a day," added Bennett, jokingly.

Since then, over 30,000 students have planted more than a million trees around Reedsport, Scottsburg and Elkton.

"We want the kids to come out with an idea that we do reforest all of our lands, the trees just don't come on their own," said Truax.

"It's been really fun. It's kind of hard with all the digging, but it's been fun" said sixth-grader and first-time volunteer Mariah Abstetar.

Abstetar said she didn't know that forests could be re-planted.

"I've learned a lot about the forest and how re-planting is good for the environment," she said.

Event organizers said their hope is that 50 years from now, after these trees have grown and been harvested, a new group of kids will come to this site and plant some new trees for the next generation to enjoy.

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